Montrose man’s Trump film wins third award

Published:06:00Sunday 09 October 2011

A DOCUMENTARY branded “a failure” by property tycoon Donald Trump has scooped its third major award and is now assured a place in posterity.

‘You’ve Been Trumped’, which documents the development of Mr Trump’s £750 million golf resort at the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire, has won the Scottish Screen Archive Prize for Best Feature Documentary at the Edindocs Festival in Edinburgh.

The award also means the 95-minute film, directed by local film-maker Anthony Baxter, will now be archived permanently in the National Library of Scotland.

In June ‘You’ve Been Trumped’ won the Green Prize – the top environmental award for UK documentaries – at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and two months later it scooped the Special Jury Prize at Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan.

The documentary was rejected for funding by Creative Scotland and passed over for inclusion in this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. It has, however, been a hit at some of the world’s most prestigious documentary festivals and will shortly be screened in Australia, Taiwan, Bermuda and at several major festivals in the United States.

Mr Trump’s development includes a championship golf course, clubhouse, luxury hotel and 1,500 houses which are being built on part of an Site of Special Scientific Interest on the Aberdeenshire coast. The development has met with opposition from some neighbouring residents and from environmental scientists who claim it is ruining one of the “crown jewels of Scotland’s natural heritage.”

Mr Baxter this week said: “It’s a great honour for ‘You’ve Been Trumped’ to be recognised as an important historical document and reassuring to know that future generations will be able to learn lessons from the environmental destruction that’s been unfolding on the Menie Estate for precious little economic benefit.”

‘You’ve Been Trumped’ has just begun a Sheffield Doc/Fest winners’ tour – playing at major independent cinemas across the UK - and is also part of the Take One Action Film Festival which takes in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness.

The film is also due to return to cinemas in Aberdeen and Dundee next month, will be screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival later this month and is due to unspool for its official New York premiere in early October.

Scottish folk singer-songwriter Karine Polwart is currently penning a new song inspired by events captured in the film, which will be unveiled when You’ve Been Trumped is screened at the FilmHouse in Edinburgh on October 2.